In the past decade, fast global information development push data centers to evolve along the direction of super large scale. In 2012, each data center of Amazon has about 60,000 servers, and that for Google, the number exceeds 50,000 servers, while Microsoft is building a data center containing over 300,000 servers. Current data centers generally adopt the layered tree topology, such as the ‘Fat Tree’ topology. The advantage of the tree topology is its large bi-directional bandwidth, while the disadvantage is its lack of scalability. As pointed out in the Article entitled “60 GHz Data-Center Networking: Wireless Worry less,” topological and cabling complexity in data centers is reaching unimaginable proportions, leading to maintenance challenges, inefficient cooling, and substantial operational costs.
To tackle the interconnecting issue, the following proposals have been put forth in the industry:
The first is to replace wires with wireless interconnects. Wireless networking has signals prone to interference, small bandwidth, and high consumption of stations, making it only a topic at the academies, and not fit for practical application.
The second is to develop a unified structure based on integrated and enhanced Ethernets, with Cisco and Brocade being the major proponents. Although the method decreases the number of cables, trunk adapters, and network interfaces, the cost of equipping and integrating network adapters is huge, further, main boards for Ethernet optical fiber channels are not yet available.
The third is to adopt structured cabling. The main idea is to divide the cabling system in a data center into a main cabling area and a device area based on different devices. The main cabling area and the device area are connected with optical cables, while servers, switchers, and storage devices are jumper-connected via cable distribution frames in the main cabling area and the device area. The proposed solution simplifies cable management to some extent, making it possible to move or modify the system by merely changing jumpers. But it does not decrease the number of system cables, thus interconnecting complexity remains and the operating difficulty is still high.
Because of the above reasons, a method of module networking based on Arrayed Waveguide Grating (AWG) and directed at cabling complexity and management in a data center is in need.